On the role of artistic freedoms in protecting fundamental human rights

This was a paper written to be spoken at the Human Rights Conference 2020: Lawyers without Borders Student Division Aberdeen University, March 2020. It was accompanied by 15 Power point slides, which cannot be reproduced in the hard copy paper for reasons of copyright. The paper responds to the question, 'Do artistic freedoms contribute to the protection of fundamental Human Rights'. With examples and with reference to cultural policy research discourse, I argue that the freedoms of 'art' are intimately connected to human rights, and that where human rights are contextualised by 'culture' (and cultural rights) we begin to understand the significance of the 'human' in human rights

Art, public authorship and the possibility of re-democratization

The subject of this study is a large public art project by German artist Jochen Gerz, which was part of the urban regeneration program The Phoenix Initiative in Coventry City, 1999-2004. The study presents a short historical backdrop to Gerz’s work by way of defining ‘public authorship’ of which the Coventry project is one example. It extends the literature on contemporary countermonument by assessing Gerz’s artistic strategy in using a monument to exploring the conditions of public culture and possible shape of a cultural public sphere in the contemporary city. The public art project lasted over five years and was a mechanism by which the political issues at stake in the public life of Coventry, particularly the socio-historic conflicts that are constitutive of its civic identity, were articulated. The study argues that public authorship succeeded in identifying some crucial coordinates in the political constitution of public culture in Coventry, but in the face of competing civic rhetoric and new urban policy initiatives, the project remains an open inquiry. This study concludes by identifying some critical lines of inquiry for future studies in art’s critical role in the public sphere

Book review: curators of cultural enterprise: a critical analysis of a creative business intermediary by Philip Schlesinger, Melanie Selfe and Ealasaid Munro

Curators of Cultural Enterprise: A Critical Analysis of a Creative Business Intermediary presents a detailed portrait of the Cultural Enterprise Office (CEO), a small Glasgow-based agency that supports creative businesses. Through this case study of a ‘creative business intermediary’, Philip Schlesinger, Melanie Selfe and Ealasaid Munro more widely reflect on recent UK policies relating to the creative economy, in particular ‘micro-businesses’. This book’s unusual methodology – borne of working in productive interaction with CEO – and particular focus on the tensions and interplay between the public and private realms make this essential reading for those involved in the cultural sector, policy-making and creative industries, writes Jonathan Vickery

Strange cargo : the future of cultural participation

This is a commissioned critical essay, for participatory arts agency Strange Cargo (UK). It offers a summary of their history and various projects and then theorises their approach as participatory art

Book review: culture, economy and politics: the case of New Labour by David Hesmondhalgh, Kate Oakley, David Lee and Melissa Nisbett

In Culture, Economy and Politics: The Case of New Labour, David Hesmondhalgh, Kate Oakley, David Lee and Melissa Nisbett focus on the emergence of cultural policy as a key concern under the Labour party between 1997 and 2010. Drawing particularly upon interviews with key figures, this is a valuable, even-handed book that is recommended reading for any course exploring UK culture and politics post-Thatcher, writes Jonathan Vickery

Organisation space

This was prepared as a script for the seminar and book launch, where references and clarifications were later added. The book was (with Ian King: 2013) Experiencing Organisations: new aesthetic perspectives, Oxon:Libri. The address accounted the history of the book in the context of the intellectual formation of OS (Organisational Aesthetics): it also forwards theoretical points on the development of O

Book review: developing cultural industries: learning from the palimpsest of practice by Christiaan De Beukelaer

What role have culture and the creative industries come to play as ‘tools’ for social and economic development? In Developing Cultural Industries: Learning from the Palimpsest of Practice, Christiaan De Beukelaer examines the implementation of culturally focused development policies in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Although it could more directly challenge the vested powers of Western agencies and NGOs that have institutionalised ‘development’ as a global industry, the book nonetheless offers critical insight into the under-researched emergence of culture as a major strand of development discourse, writes Jonathan Vickery. Developing Cultural Industries: Learning from the Palimpsest of Practice. Christiaan De Beukelaer. European Cultural Foundation. 2015

Cultural management : a historical dilemma

This was a keynote address given at the first ‘Forum on Global Cultural Management’ at Shanghai JiaoTong University, 9th December 2019. It asserts that the cultural field (cultural researchers and cultural sector representatives throughout the world) should reflect on their "imported" models of management. The paper advocates a 'cultural' approach to understanding management, and a new direction in cultural research with reference to the UN 2005 Convention on Cultural Diversity

Book review: globalization, culture and development: the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity edited by Christiaan De Beukelaer, Miikka Pyykkönen and J. P. Singh

In Globalization, Culture and Development: The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity, editors Christiaan De Beukelaer, Miikka Pyykkönen and J. P. Singh present a series of research essays examining the 2005 UN Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Jonathan Vickery argues that this volume not only critically explores one of the fastest conventions to have passed through the UN General Assembly, but also that its findings serve to shed further light on some of the broader problems bound up in the UN’s current role in global development

Cultural rights and cultural policy : identifying the cultural policy implications of culture as a human right

This article explores the parameters of ‘culture’ as a Human Right – Cultural Rights – and culture in the Human Rights system of international law and its now globally-pervasive set of axioms. The article attends to definitional issues on the use of culture to determine critical loci of human identity formation and fundamental ethics, and the use of culture to conceptualise the scope and scale of human freedom. Its aim is to define Cultural Rights in direct relation to the interests of cultural policy making and more importantly in relation to the scholarly field of cultural policy research. This will involve defining the legal-institutional sphere of Human Rights and range of applications but only insofar as to focus on issues central to current cultural policy research and its contingent questions of interpretation (such as the meaning of a ‘cultural right’ in particular social contexts). The secondary aim of this article is to define how cultural policy research (historically invested in particular historical evolution of national arts traditions and heritage management) could be central to the study of ‘rights-based’ global development